Perry High School shooter kills 6th grader, wounds 5 other people; Police investigating motive

Vigil

Important Takeaways:

  • Iowa school shooter believed to have posted an ominous TikTok video before killing a 6th grader and wounding 5 others
  • Moments before a 17-year-old unleashed gunfire at Iowa’s Perry High School, killing a sixth grader and wounding five other people, the student is believed to have posted a foreboding TikTok video.
  • On the morning shooter Dylan Butler opened fire, a TikTok post believed to be from the shooter shows him inside a school bathroom posing with a blue duffel bag, captioned: “Now we wait.”
  • Butler – who also died amid Thursday’s horror, a law enforcement official told CNN – “made a number of social media posts in and around the time of the shooting,” said Mitch Mortvedt, assistant director of the Iowa Department of Public Safety Division of Criminal Investigation. “Law enforcement are working to secure those pieces of evidence,” he added.
  • New details also are emerging about whether Butler may have been bullied, though his motive might never be confirmed. He was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Mortvedt said.
  • Still, investigators are trying to determine why Butler entered the school with pump-action shotgun and small-caliber handgun, Mortvedt said. Officers also discovered a rudimentary explosive device after the killer went on the deadly rampage before classes started on the first day back to school since winter break.

Read the original article by clicking here.

Three killed including shooter at U.S. Navy base in Pensacola, Florida

Three killed including shooter at U.S. Navy base in Pensacola, Florida
(Reuters) – Three people including a suspected shooter were killed and at least seven others were injured on Friday at Naval Air Station Pensacola, a major U.S. Navy base in Florida, authorities said, the second deadly shooting at a U.S. military installation this week.

An “active shooter” was encountered on the base on Friday morning, according to the Escambia County sheriff’s office.

A few minutes later, the shooter was dead, according to the sheriff’s office and the Navy. WEAR TV, a local news channel, reported that sheriff’s deputies at the base fatally shot the shooter.

Two other people were killed, the Navy said in a statement, without providing further details. Authorities planned a news conference for later on Friday morning.

The base remained on lockdown.

At least six injured people were expected at the trauma center of the Ascension Sacred Heart Hospital Pensacola, spokesman Mike Burke said.

Seven people were being treated at Baptist Hospital, WEAR TV reported.

U.S. President Donald Trump had been briefed and was monitoring the situation, a White House spokesman said.

On Wednesday, a sailor shot three civilians at the historic Pearl Harbor military base in Hawaii, killing two of them before taking his own life.

The Pensacola base, which is near Florida’s border with Alabama, is a major training site for the Navy and home to its aerobatic flight demonstration squadron, the Blue Angels. The base employs more than about 16,000 military and 7,400 civilian personnel, according to the base’s website.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen and Maria Caspani in New York; Editing by Alison Williams and Steve Orlofsky)

Lockdown lifted at North Carolina university after shooter kills two, wounds four

Trystan Andrew Terrell in a booking photo released by the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office. REUTERS/MCSO/Handout

By Greg Lacour

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (Reuters) – The University of North Carolina at Charlotte lifted a campus lockdown on Wednesday morning, a day after a gunman killed two people and wounded four on the school’s last day of classes for the semester.

Police in Charlotte charged UNC Charlotte student Trystan Andrew Terrell, 22, with two counts of murder and four of attempted murder. Three of the four people he wounded were in a critical condition on Wednesday.

They offered no hints as to the suspect’s motive and did not identify the victims.

Students on the campus spent a harrowing night as police searched door-to-door for any other suspects, not giving people the all-clear to move around till almost dawn.

“This is the saddest day in UNC Charlotte’s history,” the school’s chancellor, Phil Dubois, said in a letter to the community posted on the school’s website. “Families of the deceased victims are being notified and university staff are with those who are injured.”

The shooting started at about 5:40 p.m. on Tuesday police said, in a classroom. Tristan Field, a student who witnessed the shooting, told CBS News as many as 50 students tried to escape through two doors.

“A chair fell in front of the door, so people were tripping over that, like, trying to climb over it,” he said. “Some people fell down. It was like water through a funnel but wasn’t fast enough.”

The gunman was disarmed by two or three campus police officers who entered the building after responding to an emergency call, campus Police Chief Jeff Baker said.

A vigil was planned at the school for Wednesday, CBS news reported.

Sandy D’Elousa, a spokeswoman for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, which is leading the investigation, said the gunman was believed to have acted alone.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper called the incident a tragic day for the university and the state just a few days before graduation. “But I know the people in this community, and they will be here for each other,” he said at a news conference.

According to its website, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte has more than 26,500 students.

The deadliest mass shooting on a higher education campus in the United States took place at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Virginia, in April 2007, when a student killed 32 people and then himself.

(Reporting by Greg Lacour in Charlotte; Additional reporting by Gabriella Borter in New York and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Scott Malone and Bill Trott)

U.S. Air Force missed four chances to stop Texas shooter buying guns

People gather to enter a memorial in the Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church where a memorial has been set up to remember those killed there, in a mass shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, U.S. November 15, 2017. REUTERS/Jon Herskovitz

By Jonathan Allen

(Reuters) – The U.S. Air Force missed four chances to block the shooter in 2017’s deadly church attack in Texas from buying guns after he was accused of violent crimes while in the military, a report by the Department of Defense’s inspector general said on Friday.

Because the Air Force failed to submit Devin Kelley’s fingerprints to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the former airman was able to clear background checks to buy the guns he used to kill 26 people at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs.

A Reuters investigation last year found that the Air Force missed multiple chances to submit Kelly’s fingerprints into the FBI’s criminal databases after the November 2017 attack.

Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, of Braunfels, Texas, U.S., involved in the First Baptist Church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, is shown in this undated Texas Department of Safety driver license photo, provided November 6, 2017. Texas Department of Safety/Handout via REUTERS

Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, of Braunfels, Texas, U.S., involved in the First Baptist Church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, is shown in this undated Texas Department of Safety driver license photo, provided November 6, 2017. Texas Department of Safety/Handout via REUTERS

Kelley, who was 26, was shot by a bystander as he fled and was found dead soon after, having shot himself in the head.

According to the inspector general’s report, the first missed chance came in June 2011, after the Air Force Office of Special Investigations began investigating a report of Kelley beating his stepson while Kelley served at a base in New Mexico.

The second chance came in February 2012, after the Air Force learned of allegations that Kelley was also beating his wife, the report said.

The third was in June 2012, when Kelley confessed on video to injuring his stepson, the report said.

The fourth was after Kelley’s court-martial conviction for the assaults in November 2013.

“If Kelley’s fingerprints were submitted to the FBI, he would have been prohibited from purchasing a firearm from a licensed firearms dealer,” the inspector general’s report said.

Each missed instance was a breach of Department of Defense policy, the report said. Multiple Air Force officials involved in Kelley’s case did not understand these policies or were unable to explain why they were not followed in interviews with the inspector general’s office.

The inspector general recommended that the Air Force improve its training of staff on how to submit fingerprints and to examine whether officials involved in Kelley’s case should face discipline for the lapses.

The Air Force did not respond to a request for comment on Friday morning but confirmed last year it had failed to share Kelley’s information with the FBI.

The inspector general found four occasions after Kelly’s conviction and a subsequent bad-conduct discharge from the military where Kelley bought guns from licensed dealers required to use the background check system.

At least some of those guns were the ones he took to the First Baptist Church, the report said.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by David Gregorio)

Multiple fatalities in shooting at video game tournament in Florida

The Landing - Jacksonville, Florida

By Suzannah Gonzales and Devika Krishna Kumar

(Reuters) – A shooter killed four people and wounded at least 10 others on Sunday at a video game tournament that was being streamed online from a restaurant in Jacksonville, Florida, local media said citing police sources.

The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said a suspect was dead at the scene. “Searches are being conducted,” it said on Twitter.

Emergency crews and law enforcement flooded into The Jacksonville Landing, a waterfront dining, entertainment, and shopping site in the city’s downtown.

The shooting took place during a regional qualifier for the Madden 19 online game tournament at the GLHF Game Bar inside a Chicago Pizza restaurant, according to the venue’s website.

It was livestreaming the tournament when several shots rang out, according to video of the stream shared on social media. In the video, players can be seen reacting to the gunfire and cries can be heard before the footage cuts off.

One Twitter user, Drini Gjoka, said he was in the tournament and was shot in the thumb.

“Worst day of my life,” Gjoka wrote on Twitter. “I will never take anything for granted ever again. Life can be cut short in a second.”

The Los Angeles Times reported the shooter was a gamer who was competing in the tournament and lost. Citing messages from another player in the room, the Times said the gunman appeared to target several victims before killing himself. Reuters could not immediately confirm that account of events.

The Florida shooting occurs amid a debate about U.S. gun laws that was given fresh impetus by the massacre in February of 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida.

Two years ago a gunman killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

The sheriff’s office said many people were transported to the hospital, and its deputies were finding many people hiding in locked areas at The Landing.

“We ask you to stay calm, stay where you are hiding. SWAT is doing a methodical search,” it said on Twitter. “We will get to you. Please don’t come running out.”

A spokesman for Jacksonville’s Memorial Hospital, Peter Moberg, said it was treating three victims, all of whom were in stable condition.

Florida Governor Rick Scott, a Republican who is challenging longtime Democratic Senator Bill Nelson in November’s election, said he had offered to provide local authorities with any state resources they might need.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio said both the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were coordinating with local authorities to provide assistance.

President Donald Trump has been briefed and is monitoring the situation in Jacksonville, the White House said.

Reacting to news of the shooting during the tournament involving its video game, Madden 19 maker Electronic Arts Inc said it was working with authorities to gather facts.

“This is a horrible situation, and our deepest sympathies go out to all involved,” the company said on Twitter.

(Reporting by Suzannah Gonzales, Devika Krishna Kumar and Maria Caspani; Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Chris Reese)

In costly quest for security, U.S. schools face law of diminishing returns

FILE PHOTO: Children demonstrate how they might take shelter in a school under a bulletproof blanket sold by Elite Sterling Security LLC (ESS) in Aurora, Colorado March 19, 2013. REUTERS/Rick Wilking/File Photo

By Joseph Ax

(Reuters) – From gunshot detection devices to wireless panic buttons and bulletproof windows, schools across the United States are pursuing aggressive security measures to prevent a shooting massacre on their campuses.

Pressure from parents and community members to find solutions, both high and low tech, has grown in the wake of deadly mass shootings at high schools in Parkland, Florida, and Santa Fe, Texas, among other violent incidents.

In the rush to find answers, school security has ballooned into a multibillion-dollar industry. Meanwhile, some schools are spending precious funds on untested technologies, safety experts said, even though the most robust and effective safety measures can only mitigate the risk, not eliminate it.

“We’ve seen this huge shift to unproven tactics, based on a lot of emotion,” said Chris Dorn, an analyst with Safe Havens International, which conducts on-site safety assessments at hundreds of schools every year. “What we really need to do is to get back to basics.”

Those include single-point entry that restricts access to buildings, classrooms that lock from the inside, training in emergency protocols and effective supervision of campuses by either police officers or school staff.

School officials must also strive to balance the need for security with a desire to preserve an atmosphere conducive to learning, experts said, warning that schools can become fortified bunkers that feel like prisons to students.

“There’s a diminishing amount of returns,” Dorn said, noting that even extraordinarily secure places like the Pentagon and the Fort Hood military base have faced shootings.

Metal detectors, for example, are expensive, require armed personnel and can create long lines outside buildings, providing yet another target for potential attackers.

Many schools have considered door-barricading devices, but experts said they can endanger students by preventing escape and stopping law enforcement from accessing rooms. Instead, schools should ensure their classrooms can be locked from the inside.

Even cameras are not necessarily helpful during an active shooter situation unless they are monitored live at all times, requiring additional personnel.

The majority of schools now have single-point entries, forcing visitors during the day to come through one entrance and get approved by a main office, a practice that security experts say is among the most effective. Many districts, like Littleton, Colorado, near the site of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, have installed video intercom systems to restrict assess.

But most schools use multiple points of entry at arrival and dismissal due to the sheer number of students. In Parkland, perimeter gates were opened shortly before the end of the day.

School resource officers – armed police officers assigned to campuses – have also become more common, and several states, including Florida and Maryland, have approved funding to pay for more officers this year.

Some schools, like Healdton Public School in Oklahoma, have installed expensive bulletproof shelters in classrooms that can shield students from incoming fire.

BUCKETS OF ROCKS

Even low-budget solutions, like providing classrooms with makeshift weapons – one Pennsylvania school district put buckets of rocks in all of its 200 classrooms – can have unexpected drawbacks if they are used in student assaults.

Beyond physical protections, schools have increasingly used threat assessment teams, which seek to identify troubled students and intervene before any violence can occur. The teams consist of school officials, mental health professionals and law enforcement.

“The people who plan these will typically tell you if there’s planning to do something violent or not,” said Marisa Randazzo, the former chief research psychologist at the U.S. Secret Service and co-author of a landmark study following Columbine that established the standards for school threat assessments.

Maryland and Florida recently passed laws requiring that all schools adopt threat assessment models in the wake of school shootings, joining Virginia as the only states to mandate the practice, Randazzo said.

“Before you connect the dots, you have to collect the dots,” said Gary Sigrist of Safeguard Risk Solutions, which provides security consulting to schools.

But experts in security say even the best safety measures have their limits. A determined shooter will usually find a way to inflict damage, especially in cases such as the Texas incident in which the suspect is a student authorized to be on campus.

“If there’s any one lesson we’ve learned, there is no 100 percent foolproof method to prevent these acts of violence,” said Ronald Stephens, who runs the National School Safety Center, a group that offers training and on-site technical assistance to schools.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax in New York; Editing by Frank McGurty and Cynthia Osterman)

Gunman shouting anti-Trump slogans arrested at Miami resort

By Zachary Fagenson

DORAL, Fla. (Reuters) – A gunman railing against U.S. President Donald Trump opened fire in one of the Republican’s Florida golf resorts early on Friday, exchanging gunshots with Miami police who wounded and arrested him, officials said.

Neither Trump nor any of his immediate family members were at the Trump National Doral Miami at the time, according to the Secret Service. The golf club is about 70 miles (113 km) south of the Palm Beach resort that Trump has visited regularly during his term.

The man “was trying to lure our officers … into this gunfight. He did succeed, and he did lose. That’s the bottom line,” Miami-Dade Police Director Juan Perez said at a news briefing, adding it was not clear what motivated his actions.

The man lowered a flag that was flying outside the Miami-area club, went into the lobby at about 1:30 a.m. EDT (0530 GMT) and draped it over the counter. He pointed a gun at people in the lobby, fired at the ceiling and a chandelier and waited to attack responding officers, Perez said.

The gunman, identified as Jonathan Oddi, 42, of Doral, was shouting anti-Trump remarks during the incident, Perez said. He said he did not know specifically what Oddi had said.

Police shot Oddi in the legs and took him into custody, and he was in hospital in stable condition.

Social media pages that appeared to be created by Oddi said that he owned a gemstone company, was a real estate investor and had been a volunteer Santa Claus at a Miami hospital in 2013.

Guests at the golf resort said they were awakened by the sound of gunshots and emergency vehicles. They were not apprised of any details of the incident by the hotel and only learned of it through news reports, they said.

“We’re staying near the lobby and my husband said he thought he heard shots,” said Ana Marta Fernandez, 49, who was visiting from Uruguay.

She said the hotel had said little more than that the golf courses were closed for the day.

“So far they’ve offered us nothing as compensation,” Fernandez said.

A resort representative was not immediately available to comment.

The U.S. Secret Service, which guards the president and his family, said in a statement that no one under its protection was in the Miami area at the time. The agency does not protect the club, but is working with police who are investigating the shooting, it said.

A Doral police officer suffered a broken arm that was not related to gunfire. Police have not said what kind of weapon the suspect had.

Authorities are trying to find out how Oddi gained entry to the 800-acre (323-hectare) Doral golf club.

Trump National Doral Golf Club is home to four championship golf courses. Trump bought the property for $150 million in 2012.

(Reporting by Zachary Fagenson in Miami, additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone and Bernadette Baum)

Islamist group youth leader accused of shooting Pakistani minister – police

FILE PHOTO: Pakistan's Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal speaks to media outside the accountability court in Islamabad, Pakistan October 2, 2017. REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood/File Photo

By Asif Shahzad

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – The gunman accused of shooting and wounding Pakistan’s interior minister is a youth leader of a hardline religious group that sees its mission as enforcing death for blasphemers and ridding government of secular influence, police said in a report.

Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal was shot on Sunday as he was leaving a constituency meeting surrounded by supporters in Punjab province.

He is in hospital and out of danger but the attack has shaken the political establishment ahead of a general election expected in July.

The suspected gunman, arrested at the scene, is Abid Hussain, 21, a youth leader of the Islamist Tehreek-e-Labaik party, police said in an interrogation report seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

The party, known as Labaik, has made the emotive issue of blasphemy its rallying cry in a country where for years hardline Islamists have vied for power with civilian politicians and a coup-prone military.

Hussain told police he was inspired by the teachings of founders of the Labaik and joined a party blockade of the capital, Islamabad, in November aimed at forcing out a government minister they accused of blasphemy over a change to an oath-taking law.

According to police, Hussain said he had dreamt Ali Hajveri, an 11th century Muslim preacher revered in South Asia, “ordered me to kill Ahsan Iqbal”.

Labaik denied that Hussain was a member of the party.

“We have nothing to do with him,” spokesman Ejaz Ashrafi told Reuters.

But a founding member of Labaik, Pir Afzal Qadri, said Iqbal and his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party had invited trouble by committing blasphemy when they changed an election law in a way some said weakened an oath declaring Mohammad the last true prophet.

“They have done so much wrong,” Qadri said in a video message. “It is their fault, they themselves are responsible for this. These people are inviting attacks.”

‘SEND THEM TO HELL’

Iqbal’s shooting has stoked fears of a repeat of the pre-election Islamist violence that has blighted polls before, including the 2007 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

It has also compounded unease about blasphemy.

Even accusations of blasphemy can lead to mob killings and those convicted of blasphemy face the death penalty, though no death sentences for it have been carried out.

Many clerics say even to suggest change to the blasphemy law is blasphemy.

In November, Labaik blocked a main road into the capital for several days over the small change to the election law. The government explained the change as a clerical error and reversed it. The minister responsible resigned.

Hussain joined the protests determined to “send any blasphemer to hell”, police said in their report.

Seven people were killed and 200 wounded when police tried to clear the blockade.

Qadri said Iqbal, as interior minister, was responsible for the attack on him as he had ordered the police action.

“It is regrettable that the whole world is making hue and cry just because he got one bullet, and not a single arrest has so far been made in the martyrdom of the seven people,” Qadri said.

Police said Hussain had cited the example of Mumtaz Qadri, a bodyguard of the governor of Punjab who gunned down the man he was meant to protect in 2011 over the governor’s call for reform of the blasphemy law.

Qadri, who was convicted of murder, sentenced to death and executed in 2016, has become a martyr for hardliners, and Labaik emerged out of a movement that lionized him.

Hussain bought a pistol several months ago and later got hold of bullets, police said in the report.

Two days before the shooting, he got a WhatsApp message from a resident of the town where Iqbal was shot, telling him the minister was due.

Hours before the meeting, Hussain washed, put on smart clothes and went early to wait, police said.

“When Ahsan Iqbal came down from the stage and was encircled with party workers, Abid stood up and fired.”

(Additional reporting by Syed Raza Hassan; Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Robert birsel)

Police search schools in hunt for Nashville Waffle House shooter

Police hunting for a gunman who fled naked after killing four people at a Nashville Waffle House searched public schools through the night to make sure they would be safe when they reopen on Monday.

By Tim Ghianni

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Reuters) – Police hunting for a gunman who fled naked after killing four people at a Nashville Waffle House searched public schools through the night to make sure they would be safe when they reopen on Monday.

All Metropolitan Nashville public schools were searched and will be checked again before school opens, officials said on the department’s Facebook page. Extra security will be in place at school bus stops. Schools will be on “lock-out,” barring all visitors.

“Metro Nashville Public Schools Parents always have the final decision on whether to send their child to school,” the statement said.

Police identified the victims. Slain outside the restaurant in Nashville’s Antioch neighborhood shortly before 3:30 a.m. Sunday were Waffle House cook Taurean C. Sanderlin, 29, and patron Joe R. Perez, 20, police said. Inside, the shooter killed patrons DeEbony Groves, 21, and Akilah Dasilva, 23.

“Please say a prayer for my family for today is the hardest day of my life. Me, my husband and sons are broken right now with this loss. Our lives are shattered,” Perez’s mother Trisha Perez posted on Facebook.

Dasilva’s mother Shaundelle Brooks told CBS News affiliate WTVF her son was a student at Middle Tennessee State University pursuing music engineering: “He meant the world to us. He was humble, kind, compassionate, outgoing and very creative.”

Groves was a Belmont University senior who studied social work and was described by her high school basketball coach Kim Kendrick on CBS News affiliate WTVF as a tenacious player.

Two wounded patrons, Shanita Waggoner, 21, and Sharita Henderson, 24, were being treated at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, both listed in stable condition early on Monday. Others were cut by shattered glass.

One diner, James Shaw Jr., 29, was grazed by a bullet as he hid near a restroom before he wrestled the AR-15 rifle from the gunman, police said. Police credited his action with saving lives. At a news conference, Shaw said he was no hero, adding: “I just wanted to live.”

Travis Reinking, 29, of Morton, Illinois, is shown in this undated photo obtained April 22, 2018. Tennessee Bureau of Investigation/Handout via REUTERS

Travis Reinking, 29, of Morton, Illinois, is shown in this undated photo obtained April 22, 2018. Tennessee Bureau of Investigation/Handout via REUTERS

Metropolitan Nashville Police Field Captain Daniel Newbern said the suspected shooter, Travis Reinking, 29, originally from Tazewell County, Illinois, faces multiple murder charges. Police believe he is still armed with a pistol.

Police disclosed no known motive for the attack by Reinking, who was naked except for a green jacket when he got out of his pickup truck and started shooting.

As the shooter ran off, he discarded the jacket, which contained two additional ammunition magazines for the AR-15, according to police.

(Writing by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York, and Keith Coffman in Denver; Editing by Michael Perry and Bernadette Baum)

YouTube attacker was vegan activist who accused tech firm of discrimination

Police officers are seen at Youtube headquarters following an active shooter situation in San Bruno, California, U.S., April 3, 2018. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

By Paresh Dave

SAN BRUNO, Calif. (Reuters) – The woman identified by police as the attacker who wounded three people at YouTube’s headquarters in California was a vegan blogger who accused the video-sharing service of discriminating against her, according to her online profile.

Nasim Najafi Aghdam appears in a handout photo provided by the San Bruno Police Department, April 4, 2018. San Bruno Police Department/Handout via REUTERS

Nasim Najafi Aghdam appears in a handout photo provided by the San Bruno Police Department, April 4, 2018. San Bruno Police Department/Handout via REUTERS

Police said 39-year-old Nasim Najafi Aghdam from San Diego was behind Tuesday’s shooting at YouTube’s offices in Silicon Valley, south of San Francisco, where the company owned by Alphabet Inc’s Google employs nearly 2,000 people.

A man was in critical condition and two women were seriously wounded in the attack, which ended when Aghdam shot and killed herself.

Californian media reported that Aghdam’s family had warned the authorities that she may target YouTube prior to the shooting. Her father Ismail Aghdam told The Mercury News that he had told police that she might be going to YouTube’s headquarters because she “hated” the company.

Police said they were still investigating possible motives but Aghdam’s online activities show that she believed YouTube was deliberately obstructing her videos from being viewed.

“YouTube filtered my channels to keep them from getting views,” she wrote on YouTube according to a screenshot of her account. Her channel was deleted on Tuesday.

Writing in Persian on her Instagram account, Aghdam said she was born in Iranian city of Urmiah but that she was not planning to return to Iran.

“I think I am doing a great job. I have never fallen in love and have never got married. I have no physical and psychological diseases,” she wrote.

“But I live on a planet that is full of injustice and diseases.”

Her family in Southern California recently reported her missing because she had not been answering her phone for two days, police said.

At one point early Tuesday, Mountain View, California, police found her sleeping in her car and called her family to say everything was under control, hours before she walked onto the company grounds with a hand gun and opened fire.

The United States is in the grips of a fierce national debate around tighter curbs on gun ownership after the killing of 17 people in a mass shooting at a Florida high school in February. Authorities there failed to act on two warnings about the attacker prior to the shooting, prompting a public outcry.

Aghdam ran a website called NasimeSabz.com, which translates as “Green Breeze” from Persian, on which she posted about Persian culture, veganism and long, rambling passages railing against corporations and governments.

“BE AWARE! Dictatorships exist in all countries. But with different tactics,” she wrote. “They care only for short term profits and anything to to reach their goals even by fooling simple-minded people.”

Complaints about alleged censorship on YouTube are not unique. The video service has long faced a challenge in balancing its mission of fostering free speech with the need to both promote an appropriate and lawful environment for users.

In some cases involving videos with sensitive content, YouTube has allowed the videos to stay online but cut off the ability for their publishers to share in advertising revenue.

Criticisms from video makers that YouTube is too restrictive about which users can participate in revenue sharing swelled last year as the company imposed new restrictions.

YouTube spokeswoman Jessica Mason could not immediately be reached for comment.

(Reporting by Paresh Dave; additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi in ANKARA; Writing by Rich McKay; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)